Week in Reading (and Mostly Running): May 8th

It's May! It's May! The lovely month of May! With my two big races* of the spring behind me, I'm hopeful that some (desperately needed) recovery time in the next few weeks will include books, books, and more books (and a little bit of television**). Here's what's on deck:

I seem to be on a kick for historical Essex-based novels about (possibly) supernatural forces. After finishing The Essex Serpent this weekend (review to come in Shelf Awareness for Readers), I'm just starting Strange Magic. The former was a quiet, contemplative novel that ruminated on good and evil, nature and faith, love and regret, and the human condition. The latter, so far, looks to be about 16th-century witch trials in Essex and a modern-day museum preserving their memory. My book clubs this month are reading Americanah by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie (a re-read for me) and Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple (a new book from a much-loved author). Maybe somewhere in there I'll work in something that's not for a deadline, but right now, it's not looking promising on that front...

I'm also re-reading Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (the Pulitzer-prize winning work by Matthew Desmond) for the Social Justice Book Club this month. It's not too late to join in if you'd like; sign up for an invite here, or if you're already in the Slack, just add yourself to the #evicted channel over there.

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*I finished my first ever ultramarathon! 31.7 miles of trails on a 90+ degree day, and I didn't die. Full race report to come later this week. I followed that up with a "recovery" run at the Frederick Half Marathon, and plan to sit on my butt and sleep a lot this week to apologize to my poor feet.

**In the queue: The Handmaid's Tale, American Gods, and catching up on Timeless.

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What are you reading this week? What else should I be watching? What are your favorite rest & recovery regimens?

Week in Reading (and Running): April 9th

Caught Lounging: Two Hikers on the AT

This past week was a recovery week in more ways than one: after last weekend's back-to-back high-mileage runs (totaling 26 miles in two days), the training plan for this week called for two easy-paced 45-minute runs and only 8 miles for yesterday. I ran two easy-paced 30 minute runs, did a session at the physical therapists, and barely eked out 5.5 miles on Saturday's run before calling it a dud; despite the low mileage all week, my legs were still absolutely exhausted and just would not get themselves into gear. After the dud run and a short hike yesterday (see photo above), today is all rest, rest, rest, stretch, and a bit more rest. Like Tara said in her running recap this week, someone remind me to keep up these PT and stretching exercises post-injury, yeah? They're exhausting but I think it's probably telling that they are so. Race day in T-3 weeks. But who's counting?

Week in Reading: March 27th

*tap tap* Is this thing on? It's been a while since I've done this, so pardon the rust as I get myself back in gear. How many idioms can I cram into one opening sentence? Is this considered burying the lede? Ahem. Without further ado...

I've had a few weeks of good reading, though it all feels vaguely slump-like to me despite enjoying several recent selections. I'm trying to cut myself some slack, but at the same time, I miss reading. And thinking about what I'm reading. And writing about reading. So here I am, trying the writing part in hopes that perhaps it will kick the rest of my reading self back into gear.

Week in Reading: February 6, 2017

It's been an unsurprisingly light week in the reading world over here. Work's work, but my spare time has been spent almost exclusively visiting a sick family member and running myself into the ground--not necessarily in that order. Luckily, getting to these visits means plenty of time for audiobooks, and my long run this weekend--my longest to date!--went well and didn't kill me. So, small things. Focus on the small things.

Week in Reading, and in Life: Monday, December 5th

Hey, so, remember when I used to be a blogger? Yeah, me too, kind of. Let's see if we can get back to that version of me.

Between the election, work, end-of-year review deadlines, and a bunch of travel, I've been taking a much-needed step back from the internet. For the most part, it's been quite excellent. I'm starting to ease back into things, starting with this little corner of the internet. We shall see.

Am Reading

I now consume most of my news in print form (The Frederick News Post and The Washington Post), where I don't worry about accidentally reading the comments, and find myself drawn into stories I would otherwise have glossed over in online headlines. It's been a shift for this millennial, and proved a (mostly) welcome one.

Week in Reading: A Birthday, a Burden, and a Stack of Books

It's been a week. It's been what feels like the longest week possible. It's been a dark week. It's been a hard week. It's been a trying week. It's been a crying week.

It seems almost trivial to sit here and write about books in a week when far more important things are happening in our world, but I believe that books are, now more than ever, crucial to our existence. They are the means by which we can understand this crazy, fucked up, upside-down world of ours, learn from the mistakes of the past, and try to apply reason to the insanity of the present, and the means by which we can escape it. They are a way of leaning into the horrors, of seeking comfort from the same, and a means of hiding from reality when need be.

Week in Reading: October 17th

Wow, remember when I used to write things? Yeah, me neither. It has been a minute. I'm hoping to ease back into some kind of regular flow with this old blog after an unplanned-for, unanticipated 3 weeks away. To recap: Since I've last been here, I've been on an overnight train (best thing ever), a conference in Chicago (where I spoke twice), a wedding, a baptism, a panel presentation for work, a half-marathon, and just about a few dozen off-site meetings. In between, I fought off a multi-day migraine (and by "fought off," I mean "laid in bed and whined a lot and did very little else of substance"), taper madness (the struggle is real), and a host of anxiety- (and election-) related ups and downs.

Suffice it to say, I haven't been reading much. Even when I've had the time (with taper comes more free time!), I haven't had the mental capacity for it, so I've taken to the kitchen, where the methodical process of chopping, dicing, slicing, stirring, baking, and transforming has been oddly and unexpectedly soothing.

Week in Reading: September 19th

A week in reading, indeed! I finally seem to have remembered how to read a book, and damn, it feels good to be back at it.

Week in Reading: September 12th

I'm starting to think I should rename these posts "a week in running" instead of "a week in reading," because I seem to be running much more than I'm reading these days. I've come to accept (in a kicking and screaming kind of way) that I'm in a full-on slump; I don't even have an audiobook going at the moment, despite several hour-long drives last week and coming up again this week. And so my reading list this week looks disappointingly similar to that of last week, and the week before...

Week in Reading: September 6th

Post-race beers at the Thorpewood Trails 10k

What a (long) weekend. I don't know about the rest of you, but the temperatures here were absolute perfection these past three days -- I spent the weekend running (a 10 mile training run on Saturday and a 10k trail race with friends on Sunday), airing out the house (it was cool enough to turn off the AC for a few days!), and generally catching up on things like breathing and laundry and dishes. My pseudo-slump continues (I've picked up nothing but assigned and/or book club books since I last whinged about not reading much), though I'm really enjoying the assigned-to-me books I'm picking up.

Week in Reading: August 29th (A Day Late...)

Like so many things in my life right now, this post is going up a day late. I'm stretched a bit too thin and fell further behind this weekend when a nasty cold took me down for two days; after a very, very terrible eight-mile run on Saturday morning, I basically did nothing but sleep and whine all weekend.

Unfortunately, all of this is seeping over into my reading life, as I've barely picked up a book at all in the last week. Though I'd hoped to start some new shiny fiction to jump-start my fall reading plans, I didn't pick up a single one of these pretty titles. So consider my reading wishlist unchanged from last Monday:

Week in Reading: August 22nd

This week I'm reading... not much. Last week was no different. (I did finish Give Smart for work, which was insightful if not exactly riveting beach reading, and Trainwreck for review, about which I could say pretty much the same.) Since this I-don't-feel-like-reading mood keeps taking me, I've been trying to go with the flow and read as I feel like it; unfortunately, that desire to leave things be is in direct conflict with my desire to read all the books. So this week, I'm hopeful one of these new novels will pull me out of my pseudo-slump:

Week in Reading: Monday, August 8th

After a fabulous, sun-soaked (working) vacation, it's good to be home. Though I didn't read much while traveling, I did devour The Girls and Shelter (I read the latter on the flight home and barely looked up from the moment we took off). Now that I'm back on my own turf (read: closer to my bookshelves...), I'm back to reading more physical books for a stint, and the booking is good-looking:

Week in Reading: July 18th

Another week warmer, another wedding attended (three down, three to go!). I'm gearing up for a relatively quiet week of traveling, unwinding, catching up on work, and reading (the 24in48 readathon is coming up! Aren't you joining us?).

With a strange lull in review deadlines (my next written piece is some how not due until August 20th...), I'm floundering a bit on what to read next. I'm devouring the last few available episodes of the Outlander tv series (finally) and am ramping back up on training for my fall races, so that's starting to eat into my reading time--though of course that doesn't mean I won't be reading.

Week in Reading: July 11th

It's Monday, it's a new week, and I feel like my reading priorities have shifted approximately 10 times over the last week. I finished The Tenth of December, by George Saunders, for a book club buddy read over the weekend (adored it and all its strangeness--why did I let this wallow on my shelves for so long?), and read most of The Affair, by Colette Freedman for another book club that meets this week (let me spare you the pain: it's been a long while since I read anything so overwrought, overwritten, cliche, and generally awful without adding it immediately to the DNF pile, though I do think it will make for very interesting book club discussion). I also finished The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater, following an emergency sprint to the library to secure a physical copy when I realized my library hold on the digital copy had expired 12 hours earlier than I thought it would. While I was there, I went ahead and picked up the rest of the series, because hey, why not? So Blue Lily, Lily Blue will most definitely be on my stack this week.

Week in Reading: July 5th

Happy day-after-July 4th, all ya'll Americans here (and happy Tuesday to any non-Americans...). We had a very fun (if a bit rainy) long weekend, with friends and family and food and not too much reading. But I can at least say that my reading stack has changed since the last time I posted a Week in Reading post (two weeks ago!)...

Week in Reading: June 20th

It's the summer solstice! Officially the longest day of the year... and it's a gorgeous one here. Unfortunately I'm stuck inside work work working in preparation for vacation (it's a good problem to have), but I was able to get out and enjoy the outdoors this weekend with a Summer Solstice 8K on Saturday night and a trail run in gorgeous mild temps on Sunday morning (see also: why I haven't been reading much lately).

Week in Reading: May 30th

Holy cats, it's the end of May already. When did that happen? How did that happen?

My Memorial Day weekend wasn't quite as reading-and-relaxing focused as I'd have wanted it to be; my mom finished the last of her move on Friday, and I've spent the weekend playing catchup on things in my own house (hellooooo laundry); squeezing in some very hot and humid mileage (including an impromptu 5K this morning that resulted in a new PR!); and generally trying to regain my sense of sanity.

Some of that recovery did include books: I finished Mr. Splitfoot after sleeping in a bit on Saturday morning (what a strange, incredible book) and have had The Nest going on my headphones as I run errands and do chores around the house here (I'm really enjoying it so far--definitely worthy of its summer buzz).

I wrapped up the tail end of Just Mercy last week--just in time to pick up The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts this week for the June edition of the Social Justice Book Club (won't you join us!?). And for some diversity in my reading, I'm also picking away at The Raven Boys, by Maggie Stiefvater, because Shaina and Jenny and others told me to.

And then there are the many summer galleys staring at me, which I currently find too overwhelming to contemplate.

I've got ice in my coffee and sun on my balcony, so that will be all for now. Here's to a week of wonderful reading. And don't forget to sign up for this month's Social Justice Book Club!

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What are you reading this week?

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The Social Justice Book Club is an informal group read of a social-justice related book. For June, we're reading The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts, by Laura Tillman. Come join us!

Week in Reading: May 23rd

I'm home! After a whirlwind few weeks (I haven't spent more than 3 nights in my own house without traveling or hosting guests since April 5th... not that I counted or anything), I have a few weeks at home to catch up on laundry, sleep, and hopefully some serious reading. I'm looking at BEA galleys and summer reads and all of my own damn books and just so excited to curl up in my nook with a book. Here's what I'll be focusing on this week:

I've had George Saunders' story collection, The Tenth of December on my shelf since the month it came out, and I am *finally* reading it! (Thanks, MLDBC and #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks.) So far, I'm loving the strange humanity of the stories. Can't wait to keep going with that. I'm also finishing up Just Mercy, which I fell woefully behind it but am absolutely loving as well--and I'll be done just in time for the next round of the Social Justice Book Club in June (come join us!).

My audio copy of Mr. Splitfoot from the library was due back and had holds, so I'm finishing that up as an ebook this week, and have switched to the very creepy, surprisingly humorous, so far excellent Haunting of Hill House, which I'm counting as a horror read for the Read Harder challenge. I've been meaning to read Shirley Jackson for some time, so am glad to be getting to this one as well.

Looking ahead to summer releases, I'm eying Running the World, a July book about running cultures around the world, and On Trails, a non-fiction book exploring how trails help us understand the world in which we live.

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What are you reading this week?

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Don't forget to join us for the second round of the Social Justice Book Club! We'll be reading The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts. Sign-ups here, more info to come this week...

Week in Reading: May 16th

Greetings from the lovely Minnesota, all! I'm writing this curled up on the couch in a log cabin in the woods somewhere outside of Minneapolis after a weekend of wedding celebrations and family and new friends. This trip was preceded by a whirlwind expedition to Book Expo America in Chicago--which was incredible--and my head and heart are full of books and travel and wonderful people.

I'll have several posts in the next few weeks coming up about Book Expo and the books discovered there. In the meantime, to clear up space for all the shiny new galleys on my radar following the show, I'm working on catching up on deadlines and book club books and other assignments: